Biconical-dominated Accretion Flow onto Seed Black Holes in a Hyper-accretion Regime

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that hyperaccretion onto seed black holes can form a stable, axisymmetric structure with biconical accretion flows and a decretion disk, facilitating rapid black hole growth in the early universe.

Contribution

It introduces a new model showing how stochastic radiation interactions lead to biconical-dominated accretion flows, challenging the assumption of purely spherical hyperaccretion.

Findings

Formation of a rotating gas disk around the black hole.

Biconical accretion flows supply high-density, low angular momentum gas.

Stable axisymmetric structure supports continuous high-rate accretion.

Abstract

Hyperaccretion occurs when the gas inflow rate onto a black hole (BH) is so high that the radiative feedback cannot reverse the accretion flow. This extreme process is a promising mechanism for the rapid growth of seed BHs in the early universe, which can explain high-redshift quasars powered by billion solar mass BHs. In theoretical models, spherical symmetry is commonly adopted for hyperaccretion flows; however, the sustainability of such structures on timescales corresponding to the BH growth has not been addressed yet. Here we show that stochastic interactions between the ionizing radiation from the BH and nonuniform accretion flow can lead to the formation of a rotating gas disk around the BH. Once the disk forms, the supply of gas to the BH preferentially occurs via biconical-dominated accretion flow perpendicular to the disk, avoiding the centrifugal barrier of the disk. Biconical-dominated accretion flows from opposite directions collide in the vicinity of the BH supplying high-density, low angular momentum gas to the BH, whereas most of the gas with nonnegligible angular momentum is deflected to the rotationally supported outflowing decretion disk. The disk becomes reinforced progressively as more mass from the biconical flow transfers to the disk and some of the outflowing gas from the disk is redirected to the biconical accretion funnels through a meridional structure. This axisymmetric hydrodynamic structure of a biconical-dominated accretion flow and decretion disk continues to provide uninterrupted flow of high-density gas to the BH.